2025-08-06 20:59:37Wasting not a second, Viridian's body became a blur as he darted through the chamber.
He rummaged through a wooden crate for a few rotten but still sturdy planks, and tore several of the toughest tendons by hand from the crocodile's corpse.
His movements were precise and efficient; in his mind he had already assembled a flawless sequence of linked kills.
Step one: the tripwire.
He fashioned a tripwire from sinew that blended almost seamlessly with the filth on the ground, one end tied to the trigger of the hunter's hand crossbow he’d found in the crate.
The crossbow was cleverly wedged with stones in an ideal firing position, the bolt smeared with the fetid, necrotic blood of the giant crocodile—enough to cause septicemia.
The arrowhead was aimed precisely at the entrance of the passage, at the most vulnerable adult spot: the lower calf.
Step Two: the bait.
When everything was set, he picked up a sharp shard of stone and struck the metal door of the alchemical gate hard.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The crisp, ringing impacts carried far through the empty sewer, perfectly simulating the illusion that someone was violently breaking the door down.
Step three: the hunting position.
After finishing all that, he didn't hide by the trap; instead he quickly retreated to the deepest part of the chamber and melted into a dark corner piled with junk.
This was a blind spot for sight and an acoustic dead zone.
He became like a statue fused with the darkness, completely holding in his breath and heartbeat, waiting patiently.
The crying behind the wall stopped abruptly.
The man who had been assaulting her also ceased his movements.
Immediately after, a hoarse, contorted male voice came from behind the wall, tinged with caution and bewilderment: "Who? Who's there? Did Lord Wugu send you?"
Viridian did not respond.
Silence spread through the darkness.
Finally, after about five minutes, a distinctly different set of footsteps came from the distant sound of water in the sewer.
The steps were light, making almost no splash in the foul water, and approached the alchemy gate in an extremely cautious manner.
Bait taken.
A hunter-like excitement flashed through Viridian's crimson eyes.
Footsteps halted at the gate.
The newcomer was extremely cautious, lingering at the door for a full half-minute, as if confirming something.
After a moment's hesitation, the possible secrets hidden in the chamber ultimately overcame his caution.
A foot in a leather boot slowly stepped into the trap’s range.
Whoosh!
The taut beast tendons were triggered in an instant!
A steel crossbow bolt smeared with giant crocodile necrotic blood cut a line of death through the air, accurately striking the newcomer’s calf!
"Plop!"
A muffled sound as a sharp blade sank into flesh.
Immediately followed by a suppressed grunt and the thud of a heavy body hitting the ground.
But Viridian did not move an inch.
A true "survivor king" always defaults to treating his enemy as a "full-health Oscar winner."
He waited quietly, like a lifeless, cold rock.
After a full minute, he finally heard the sound of the other's armor scraping as they struggled to rise, and a low curse.
The moment had come.
He slid out of the shadows like a wraith, appearing soundlessly in the center of the chamber. The second crossbow bolt in his hand was already cocked, the cold tip aimed at the struggling figure.
The newcomer was a mercenary in tattered leather armor, broad-shouldered, with a face full of battle scars and a fierce glare.
At this moment, a bolt was lodged in his left leg, the coppery blood staining his trousers and making him look utterly disheveled.
He glanced around in terror, and when he saw Veridian—emerging as if from the dark, clad in shabby noble finery, his face pale but his eyes terrifyingly bloodshot—his face was written over with unbelieving horror.
"Who are you? What is a noble like you doing in the sewers?" the mercenary barked, all bluster and no backbone, one hand furtively seeking the dagger at his waist.
A faint blue panel popped up before Viridian's eyes at the right moment.
[Detected target soul tainted by "Sin": Greed (Level 2), Slaughter (Level 2), Lust (Level 3)]
Confirmation complete.
Viridian was always too lazy to bother with the "experience points" that come from walking.
He pulled the trigger with an expressionless face.
Whoosh!
The second bolt tore through the air, with precise calculation, piercing the mercenary's other leg and pinning him to the ground, completely stripping him of any ability to move!
"Ah!"
This time, the agony was too much for the mercenary to hold back, and he let out a piercing, mournful scream.
The scream sounded like a signal.
The sobbing from behind the wall rose again, laced with a hint of hope and urgency.
At the same time, that hoarse male voice again shouted excitedly, "Finish him! Hurry and finish him! That bastard is one of 'Butcher' Wugu's men! Kill him and Lord Wugu will surely reward you handsomely!"
Viridian ignored the noisy incitement behind the wall and, step by step, unhurriedly walked toward the mercenary who lay on the ground, utterly despairing.
The mercenary frantically brandished the dagger in his hand, making a final, desperate struggle.
Viridian couldn't be bothered to dodge; he casually lifted his foot and with precise aim kicked the dagger hand at the wrist.
With a crisp "crack," the dagger slipped from his hand and flew out, landing in the filthy water.
In the face of absolute disparity in strength and overwhelming calm, all struggling seemed so absurd.
Fear filled the mercenary's eyes; he watched those increasingly near, emotionless crimson eyes and felt the certainty of death.
The next instant, sharp fangs pierced his thick neck.
A scorching torrent, mixed with sin and vitality, poured into Viridian's body like a river breaching its banks!
[Ding! [Blood Drain] proficiency +75!]
[Ding! [Pain Endurance] proficiency +60!]
[Ding! [Holy Light Resistance] proficiency +50!] [Ping! [Blunt Resistance] proficiency +80! Current: 388/400 → 468/400!] It worked.A flood of proficiency notifications washed over his panel like a waterfall.
He could feel clearly how every inch of his muscles, every bone, was being reforged under the onslaught of that power!
Yet the real surprise had only just begun!
Just as he drained the last drop of the mercenary's blood, an unprecedented prompt, suffused with a dazzling, utterly brilliant golden radiance, exploded before his eyes!
[Ding! Detection: Skill [Resilience Against Blows] proficiency, under massive experience infusion, has broken through the current level cap!]
[[Resilience Against Blows] proficiency has reached MAX!]
[Conditions met. Initiating talent metamorphosis!]
[Congratulations, host! You have obtained a second permanent talent: {Talent · Damage Absorption (Basic)}!]
[Talent · Damage Absorption (Basic)]: Passive talent. Your bodily structure has undergone a qualitative change, allowing a portion of incoming blunt damage to be converted into your own vitality for recovery.
Viridian's body trembled violently; an indescribable rapture exploded from the depths of his soul!
After [Hardened Skin], his second pillar of immortality had been forged!
That meant that when an enemy struck him with a blunt weapon, not only would it fail to inflict any real harm, it would actually “heal” him!
He glanced at the mercenary collapsing to the ground, already dried into a husk, wiped the corner of his mouth with a certain elegance, then kicked him into the pitch-dark sewage current beside them.
Destroying the body and covering tracks was an instinct etched into Gou Wang’s genes.
After he finished, the voices behind the wall—shaken by the brutal scene—fell into a deathlike silence.
Silence lasted a long time.
Just when Viridian thought the other had been scared out of his wits, the hoarse male voice suddenly sounded again in a completely different tone, filled with awe and frenzy.
"Powerful, too powerful!"
"My lord! You must be some noble of the vampire clans! Please save me! I'm not human — I'm the 'Butcher' Wugu's mortal enemy, a subordinate of the 'Fungus Lord'!"
"Just save me and I'll tell you where the 'Butcher' Wugu's true lair is! He hid the 'Essence of Sin' he's amassed over ten years there! That alone would be enough to double your power again!"
Viridian's footsteps came to an abrupt halt.
His crimson eyes suddenly erupted with an unprecedented light.
Essence of Sin?
Double his power, once more?
He slowly turned around and looked at the cold stone wall, a pleased and dangerous smile spreading across his mouth.
Now, this was truly going to be interesting.
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 150
“Ashen Council…”Lilith mouthed the unfamiliar name, her pulse tightening like a drawn wire.Gaia’s last whisper still echoed through the bridge—its ancient presence fading, leaving behind a silence vast enough to drown a galaxy.“Thank you.”The words came not through speakers but directly into their minds, faint as dying starlight. Gaia’s final thought watched the quiet void now freed of the swarm’s madness, where only the distant suns still burned in mute witness.Veridian did not answer. A promise was a promise. The transaction was complete.He lifted his hand. At his fingertip coiled a wisp of purest Termination—not energy, not light, but the embodied concept of an ending, the point where even “protection” itself ceased to exist.He touched the void.The power leapt forth, silent as breath, striking the fading core of Gaia’s consciousne
Chapter 149
The ancient voice echoed through the mental link, carrying with it a weariness that seemed to have endured across countless ages.Veridian’s will did not waver in the slightest. He didn’t even answer the question—instead, he asked in return, his tone as cold as the vacuum between stars.“You—or rather, you all—where do you come from?”Lilith stood beside him, lips pressed tightly together as she tried to process what had just happened.The Heart of the Swarm was not a chaotic beast—it was rational. That realization frightened her more than facing the swarm itself.The voice was silent for a moment, as though struggling to find words—or perhaps recalling a memory buried too deep in the abyss of time.“I… I am called Gaia. I am not a being of this universe.”As it spoke, torrents of vast information flooded directly into Veridian’s an
Chapter 148
“Talk?”Lilith’s voice quavered; the word itself seemed absurd, trembling as it left her lips. Talk—with that? With the Hive Mind that had just vomited out a moon-sized abomination?Veridian didn’t answer her question. He simply acted.“Nexus,” he commanded, calm and measured, “activate the Genesis Engine. Engage phase-walking protocol. Target: the Heart of the Hive.”The Expedition’s engines made no sound.Instead of roaring to life, the vessel grew still—eerily still. Then its massive hull began to blur, edges dissolving like ink in water. A shimmer rippled through its frame, and in the next heartbeat, the warship became translucent, a phantom adrift between realities.And then, the ghost ship plunged straight into the crimson nebula of living flesh.Lilith’s pupils contracted to pinpoints. She could <
Chapter 147
“The core… it sees us!”Lilith’s voice trembled—a terror older than reason, born from the marrow of life itself.Veridian’s gaze did not linger on the starmap for even a heartbeat.That colossal eye spanning the heavens, brimming with cold malice, stirred nothing within him.“No,” he said evenly, as though reciting a law of physics. “It doesn’t see us.”Lilith turned toward him, confused. Beyond the viewport, the red tide of the swarm was rising—a galactic tsunami of flesh and chitin surging from every direction toward the Expedition.The sheer magnitude of it crushed the mind; despair built not from power, but from numbers beyond comprehension.“But they—”“It only senses the void,” Veridian interrupted, his tone calm, almost patient.“I’ve cut the Expedition from the inf
Chapter 146
The Expedition tore through the fabric of space, completing its jump.Outside the bridge viewport, the cold, infinite darkness of the void was gone—replaced by a vast nebula of flesh and sinew, dark crimson and pulsating, like the entrails of some cosmic beast.Viscous clouds churned and bled with motion; within them, billions of glimmering motes flickered like fireflies in blood—each a living Zerg organism.The sheer scale of the nebula dwarfed entire star systems.Lilith’s stomach lurched. A wave of nausea rose from the primal depths of her biology—an instinctive revulsion born of life itself recoiling from its antithesis.“Expedition, enter stealth mode. Begin data acquisition.”Veridian’s voice was calm as still water, cutting through the dead silence of the bridge.Optical camouflage engaged instantly; the warship’s presence was erased from the physical spectrum.
CHAPTER 145
The pain that pierced Veridian’s soul came swiftly—and vanished just as quickly—but it left behind a trace he could not ignore.His expression darkened slightly as his consciousness sank into the core of his being.There lay the perfect loop of law-runes, a luminous circle woven from pure order. It was the foundation of his power, the symbol of his existence, the embodiment of the “Absolute Order” he had built himself upon. Yet now, on that immaculate ring, a flaw had appeared.At the node that governed the concept of “Void,” a microscopic breach had opened—a gap smaller than a grain of dust, but vast in meaning.From it emanated a faint wisp of Chaos, clinging there like a line of corrupted code deep within the logic of his soul—an anomaly that defied identification, coexisting alongside his own law of the Void.Veridian immediately summoned the silvery Primordial power he had just used to clea
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